Rapid7, a leading provider of IT security data and analytics software and services, today announced that Rapid7 Nexpose interoperates with the VMware NSX network virtualization platform to provide insight into threats and advanced risk management capabilities for virtualized environments. Rapid7 and VMware enable organizations to realize the value of Rapid7's advanced security services across the software-defined data center while supporting customers' speed and agility requirements.

"Rapid7 is committed to simplifying and improving security, enabling our customers to maximize the productivity of their teams," said Lee Weiner, Senior Vice President of Products and Engineering at Rapid7. "Nexpose and VMware NSX enable teams to automate many network management processes, without sacrificing visibility into network risk."

The VMware NSX network virtualization platform is the next major advancement in the software-defined data center. VMware NSX delivers a completely new operational model for networking and security, in effect a hypervisor for the network, to allow data center operators to provision network and security services at the same speed at which they provision computer resources. This enables organizations to rapidly deploy applications and services.

Nexpose and VMware NSX enable organizations to maximize these efficiency gains, while enhancing the visibility they need to effectively manage risk. Working with VMware NSX, Nexpose can perform scans directly through the hypervisor, reducing network bandwidth requirements and impact to virtual machines. Nexpose is capable of identifying and scanning virtual machines, regardless of network segment, ensuring security teams don't need to be aware of changes to the network topology that might impact security measures.

"Organizations need to be agile, with the flexibility to quickly deploy and modify applications and all associated networking and security services on-demand," said Hatem Naguib, Vice President, Networking and Security at VMware. "Our collaboration with Rapid7 enables security and IT teams to deliver enhanced productivity and agility to the organization, while managing vulnerability risk."

Combining Nexpose and VMware NSX simplifies and automates many of the traditional challenges with current vulnerability assessment methods. This is a critical step towards real-time vulnerability and risk management with the following benefits:

Real-time visibility through continuous discovery and vulnerability assessment of virtual machines on the network, regardless of network segmentation and topology.

Reduced administration costs through automatic setup and configuration of Nexpose, without the need for dedicated security resources.

About Rapid7

Rapid7 security analytics software and services reduce threat exposure and detect compromise for 3,000 organizations across 78 countries, including over 250 of the Fortune 1000. We understand the attacker better than anyone and build that insight into our solutions to improve risk management and stop threats faster. We offer advanced capabilities for vulnerability management, penetration testing, controls assessment, incident detection and investigation across your assets and users for virtual, mobile, private and public cloud networks. To learn more about Rapid7 or get involved in our threat research, visit www.rapid7.com.